Sunday, 18 March 2018

This week's Hobby Sunday features some more completed Purestrain Genestealers for my Genestealer Cults army.

These 8 Purestrains will be added to the ten that I already have in the army. I have another 16 to assemble and paint up to give me two units in my army. These are a really strong unit in the army, able to put out a lot of attacks and able to go through enemy armour saves more effectively.

Thursday, 15 March 2018

There were some fantastic armies on display at the recent tournament I attended, held by Greetings From the Warp. Here are some pics of the armies, as well as some of the awesome board set ups used on the day.

Wednesday, 14 March 2018

In my final game of the tournament, I would be facing Mark and his Ork army. The third mission of the day was Targets of Opportunity with the Vanguard Strike deployment zone. This is the mission where you only get one turn to score your three cards, having to draw new cards each turn.

The board featured some more fantastic scenery with a lot of line of sight blocking terrain and a large section in the middle. This would be useful, potentially forcing Mark to split his army to come at my gunline.

Tuesday, 13 March 2018

Game 2 of the Greetings From the Warp tournament saw my White Scars Space Marines taking on Ken and his Grey Knights army.

The mission for game 2 was the Kill Confirmed Maelstrom of War mission with Hammer and Anvil deployment. This was the mission I was most worried about of the three. My army does well at maelstrom games, but my MSU style army can give up a lot of kill points.

I had yet to face the Grey Knights since the codex was released. My experiences with the in the index were not great, struggling against the army with my Deathwatch. The Stormraven is still a tough unit to take down. Hopefully, I would have some good firepower to take it out quickly.

Monday, 12 March 2018

Welcome to the first battle report from a recent tournament that I attended. The tournament was held by Greetings From the Warp, and consisted of three games of maelstrom of war.

For the tournament, I have been practicing with a new type of army for my White Scars Space Marines. This army focuses on infantry and board control, with some potent firepower and close combat units.

Game 1 saw me facing off against Justin and his Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Daemon army. If you are on Instagram, you can follow Justin at BlueMarbleChomper. (Remember, you can now follow the St Andrews Wargaming Facebook page to keep up to date on all the latest battle reports too).

First off, let me say that the guys at Greetings From the Warp put on a great event. The tables looked amazing, with plenty of terrain, and the standard of the armies was really high as well. They were great to chat with and were very helpful throughout the day. I hope to attend many of their events in the future.

The first game was the Sealed Orders maelstrom mission with Dawn of War deployment. In this mission, you start with 6 maelstrom cards that you keep secret from your opponent. Once you have scored/discarded your initial 6 cards, you draw 5 more, then 4, then 3, etc. This means that a bad hand can stay with you for a while, making it harder to score.

Sunday, 11 March 2018

For this week's hobby Sunday, I have been assembling some new units for my Dark Angels army. I decided to re-vamp my Dark Angels army for 8th edition. My Ravenwing army looks good on the tabletop, but my Green Wing Marines are looking a bit dated. They are all from 3rd edition and the first models I painted, so they are not great.

I've also been thinking about making the army playable as a tournament force in 8th edition, so wanted to add some new units to the army, as well as trying to improve the paint job on them.

First up, we have a couple of units of Scouts. Scouts are a fantastic unit in 8th edition, great for giving the army a high degree of board control. For more info, you can check out my review on Frontline Gaming.

Thursday, 8 March 2018

This week's battle report sees my White Scars tournament army take on Stu's Adeptus Mechanicus army in the Targets of Opportunity Maelstrom of war mission.

I was continuing my practice with my new White Scars tournament list. After last week's crushing defeat to the Daemons, I was hoping to put some of those lessons into practice in this game. As a reminder, you can follow me on facebook @standwargaming for regular updates and chats.

The army has a lot of fast moving and reserves elements, as well as a solid firebase to trouble the Mechanicus forces. The Librarian's psychic powers were not optimal for this opponent, but those were the powers I was taking to cover a range of opponents, so decided to keep them to see how I would fare.

Tuesday, 6 March 2018

I've finally got round to setting up a Facebook page for the blog. Hopefully, this will allow me to engage more with those of you reading the blog, as well as share more regular updates and chat. It will also allow me to share other great content from fellow bloggers and Youtube videos that I am viewing.

Monday, 5 March 2018

That’s me, playing a game of Bolt Action. Photo by Jeremy Cada of Forbes
Hobbies.

The first thing that strike me about Must Contain Minis is that it is a very well put together blog. I know we all do this for fun, but a great looking and laid out blog is a great draw to readers and commenters to want to get engaged.

Jacob's blog has a strong focus on games reviews and showcases. It can be all too easy to get stuck in our 40k bubble, so this is a great way to check out other great miniatures games that are out there, with some great insight into what to try next time you get burned out by 40k.

I was 9 to 10 years old when I got into gaming. My love of gaming started with the discovery of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Books followed by Fighting-Fantasy Novels and ultimately a book called Dungeoneer (an RPG based on the Fight-Fantasy Series). From there, I explored other Role-Playing Games including various editions of Dungeons and Dragons, RIFTS, Palladium Fantasy, Star Wars RPG and GURPS.

Over time, I realized that I was more of a roll-player than a role-player. I was even trying to create small skirmish style miniatures games using the Dungeons and Dragons Red Box Set and later the RIFTS RPG.

At the time, I did not know about miniatures games even though I was trying to recreate them with graph paper, paper terrain and miniature-sized paper standees. GURPS was the first game that I got into that had better Miniatures type rules followed by D&D 3rd Edition. It became clear to me that RPGs weren’t filling the niche that I wanted to scratch.

When I was 18 or 19, a friend introduced me to Necromunda (my first true miniatures gaming experience). Wow!!! I found what I was missing! Using a “loaner” gang I was able to able to play through a campaign with some friends.

Unfortunately, some aspects of my life kept me out of the miniatures gaming scene for a long time. I was 26 when I bought my first true miniatures army. That army was the Space Marines for Warhammer 40,000.

After that, I bought in and out of Warhammer several times. Each time I left, it was for the same reason - the price of new models. Their models are beautiful, but pricy for someone on a budget.

In my early 30s, I finally dived deeply into the world of miniatures. After some time trying to scratch the tabletop wargaming itch by painting board games with miniatures, I went to my first miniatures wargame convention - Hotlead in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. It was awesome!

At Hotlead, I played a game called USX: Modern Day Heroes by RAFM. I had a lot of fun at that convention and learned that you can game on a budget. There is no reason to limit yourself to just a single game. For the price of a single army in another game, I can buy into multiple other systems. There are so many options out there!!!

$40 Canadian still gets you this USX Starter Set with 17 metal
miniatures and a 20-page rule book. The set comes with 5 SWAT Team Members and
12 Deep Ones. If you like the minis, this is a good box to pick up. I think
part of what drew me to this game is my love for the old PC Game X-Com: Terror From the Deep and the fact
that USX: Modern Day Heroes mixes elements of Cthulhu with modern times. Image from RAFM’s
Webstore.